HEAVEN ‘N’ HELL – Sleeping With Angels

Say hello to a relatively new and young Finnish band, Heaven ‘N’ Hell. Formed by the Luomanen brothers, Harto and Jaakko, both guitar players, you can feel the eighties vibe coming. Now that the eighties are two – 2 – decades ago, and are not just the “last decade”, all of a sudden, people are cool with that. Remember how cool the grunge was ten years ago? Well, it was heavily inspired by the seventies. Today, grunge is a “ghost from the past”.

So back over to Finland, where the situation for young aspiring musicians must be good these days, Heaven ‘N’ Hell combines melodies and groove as well as attitude, which is important if you want to go somewhere. The first part of “Sleeping With Angels” lets your foot free and has you singing along to the catchiness. The vocals were my little issue when I first put the CD on, they are clean and very one-dimensioned, and you just have to get used to them. Vocally, sometimes the singer annoys me, but sometimes I would draw parallels to Mat Kramer from Saigon Kick, as there is a certain nerve in here.

The guitars, well, it’s the same situation as the vocals. Sometimes they are hard to recognize as you are not sure what kind of impression the band wants to leave on you, but in the other end, memories of early Ratt and Mötley Crüe are brought out, so I’ll admit it, I see a great potential in Heaven ‘N’ Hell, who recorded this CD after only one year’s existence as a band. In 10 days, I might add, proving again that there is no need to waste time and money in a studio, as the final results are not always better after a long and well overproduced session.

There is a naive and innocent vibe to Heaven ‘N’ Hell. There is, like I said, a potential in the band – as it is able to come up with pop choruses combined with groove and attitude, and taken in consideration that the machine Spinefarm is lurking behind the scenes, there is no doubt these guys will walk that way sooner or later. As you have guessed already, I look forward to the next disc from these guys. For now, I have my head up, but I am not floored… yet.